Maison de la Chancellerie
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison de la Chancellerie, located in Blois (Loir-et-Cher), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Blois, Loir-et-Cher, Centre-Val de Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.5874, 1.3308
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00098371
In the heart of Blois, the Maison de la Chancellerie houses a Renaissance framework known as "à la Philibert Delorme", a masterpiece of ingenuity in which planks assembled by wedges defy the centuries without a single main beam.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
Nestling in the urban fabric of Blois, a royal city par excellence, the Maison de la Chancellerie is one of those discreet buildings that conceal architectural treasures of rare subtlety behind a sober 16th-century façade. Its very name evokes the memory of a vanished institution: the chancellery of the Présidial, the royal court of which it was the administrative headquarters, the place where seals and sentences gave legal force to acts of justice delivered in this territory of the Loire. What really sets this house apart from the abundant Renaissance heritage of Blois is its structure. Built according to the principle known as "à la Philibert Delorme" - named after the great architect from Lyon who theorised this revolutionary technique in the 16th century - it is made entirely of planks of wood of small cross-section, joined together by wooden wedges. This ingenious system made it possible to span large spans without using long pieces of oak, a scarce and expensive forest resource at the time. The result is a light, elegant vault, almost paradoxical in its apparent solidity. The building also bears the symbolic mark of its judicial vocation. Above its portal, a sculpture once represented Justice in all its allegorical majesty: the sword on one side, the scales on the other, reminding litigants and royal officers that it was here that the power to seal destinies was exercised. This iconography, which has now partly disappeared, is nonetheless a precious testimony to the way in which 16th-century civil architecture spoke to its contemporaries. To visit the Maison de la Chancellerie is to immerse yourself in the Blois of François I and his successors, far from the crowds of the nearby royal castle, in the intimacy of a building on a human scale, where the legal and social history of the Renaissance can be read stone by stone. Its recent listing as a Historic Monument in 2023 finally gives national recognition to a jewel that has been little-known for too long. The setting in Blois enhances the experience: the town, crossed by the UNESCO World Heritage Loire River, offers a coherent architectural setting where each street reveals a new facet of Renaissance genius. The Maison de la Chancellerie is an integral part of this ensemble, inviting curious visitors to look up, push open the doors and wonder about the lives these walls once sheltered.
Architecture
The Maison de la Chancellerie is in the tradition of Renaissance civil architecture in the Loire Valley, characterised by the combination of local tufa stone - light-coloured, easy to cut and ideal for sculpted decoration - and sober formal elegance. The facade, organised with the restraint typical of 16th-century institutional buildings, bears above its portal the remains of a sculpted decoration depicting Justice, a frequent allegorical motif in the judicial architecture of the French Renaissance, inherited from the Italian models disseminated by the Italian Wars. The building's most remarkable architectural feature is undoubtedly its interior framework, built using the technique known as "à la Philibert Delorme". This system, described by the Lyon architect in his 1561 treatise, consists of assembling planks of wood of modest cross-section - generally oak or chestnut - in successive rows fixed with wooden wedges, forming a basket-handle or barrel vault of remarkable structural lightness. This technique had two advantages: it was economical, as it eliminated the need for long pieces of solid oak, which were rare and expensive at the time; and it was static, as the multiplication of assembly points distributed the loads very effectively. Few well-preserved examples of this technique remain in France. The property as a whole reveals a constructive coherence typical of public buildings of the provincial Renaissance: sober volumes, functional spaces, but a constant concern to assert the institutional dignity of the place through sculpted decoration. The building bears precious witness to the civil and judicial architecture of 16th-century Blois, a period during which the town underwent profound changes under the influence of royal construction.
Related Figures
Philibert Delorme — architecte lyonnais (1514-1570), théoricien de la charpente en planches assemblées dont la technique est mise en œuvre dans cet édificeHenri II — roi de France qui institue les Présidiaux par l'édit de Fontainebleau de 1551, donnant naissance à la juridiction dont la Maison de la Chancellerie était le siègeFrançois Ier — roi sous le règne duquel Blois connaît son apogée architectural, contexte dans lequel l'édifice fut vraisemblablement érigéProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments historiques au XIXe siècle, dont le travail d'inventaire du patrimoine civil français pose les bases de la reconnaissance tardive de tels édifices
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison de la Chancellerie located?
Maison de la Chancellerie is located in Blois, Loir-et-Cher department, Centre-Val de Loire region, France.
When was Maison de la Chancellerie built?
Maison de la Chancellerie dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison de la Chancellerie open to visitors?
Maison de la Chancellerie is currently closed to visitors.